Present invention relates to a printing apparatus and a facsimile apparatus utilizing the printing apparatus, and more particularly, to a printing apparatus which performs printing in accordance with an ink-jet printing method and a facsimile apparatus using the printing apparatus.
Conventionally, printers that perform printing in accordance with an ink-jet printing method employ various techniques as described below to detect the amount of residual ink in the ink tank.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-102061 discloses a reflective type photosensor, with a reflection board provided in an ink tank, to detect shortage of ink. In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 56-144184, to avoid degradation of detection precision due to trembles of the ink surface, ink shortage status is notified after a predetermined period from detection of the status.
However, in the above conventional example, for instance, when a carriage loading an ink cartridge which integrally incorporates an ink tank and a printhead is moved, the ink surface trembles in various manner depending on differences in conditions e.g. scanning speed, scanning width, a scanning-stop period for reversing the scanning direction and the like. A problem arises in that such variance in ink surface largely affects the precision of detecting residual ink.